In a typical candle arrangement, the flame receives fuel from the molded or dipped mass of wax surrounding the wick. As long as the fuel is supplied, through the wick via a capillary action, to the flame, the flame continually burns down the wick. In many situations, the candle is lit and left alone to burn until the candle is manually extinguished or extinguishes itself. A typical candle will normally extinguish itself upon the disintegration of the wick or the elimination of the fuel supply to the wick.
Many commercially sold wax candles, however, are often placed or formed in a glass or other fragile non-flammable container. Therefore, as the flame disintegrates the wick, the flame approaches the bottom of the glass candle holder, thereby causing the glass holder to experience excessive heating. In certain conditions, the excessive heating results in thermally induced cracking or breakage failures. Specifically, when the heat inside the glass container exceeds the heat stress limits of the glass container, the glass may crack or completely break. If a glass candle holder breaks, flying glass pieces, fire hazards, and burns from picking up hot pieces of glass and wax may result in various levels of injury.
Typical candles will often self-extinguish when less than approximately 0.25 inches of wax residue is left in the bottom of the glass holder. However, allowing a candle to burn with only 0.25 inches of wax residue between the flame and bottom of the glass is often dangerous in that, as discussed above, the flame still provides excessive heat to the glass surface. To further separate the flame from the glass surface and to provide stability to the wick, the bottom end of the wick is typically inserted into a wick clip. An exemplary wick clip (See FIG. 1) is often constructed of a thin metal or aluminum material which includes a wide base for supporting a hollow cylindrical ferrule, whereby the cylindrical ferrule is typically located in the center of the base. The center of the base often includes an opening allowing fuel access from underneath the base into the hollow ferrule.
Due to the fuel's easy access into the wick clip, the wick continues to burn inside the wick clip, thereby allowing the hot flame to further approach the glass holder. In prior art wick clips, the fuel enters from the top of the ferrule or from underneath through the opening in the wick clip base. Thus, a method and apparatus is needed which overcomes the shortcomings of the prior art by automatically extinguishing the wick when it burns down to a predetermined height above the bottom of the candle holder.